·Section 1:
My score concerning the need for achievement is 10. I did not reach the highest mark because, even thought I'm ambitious and motivated to lead a great carrier, my happiness and my achievement is not only link to work. My objective is a good balance between my personal (family, sport...) and my professional life. ·Section 2:
Concerning the need for autonomy and independence, I had a 5 which is just between the average and the top score. Indeed, I love doing things on my own and after that share what I've done with others. ·Section 3:
I scored the average for the creativity tendency. That really impressed me because I thought I would be under the average... I'm creative and innovative at all, even if I work hard on it. That's maybe why I got the average... I don't really have a lot of ideas and I prefer dealing with concrete and realistic concept. That's maybe my scientific side... ·Section 4:
My score concerning the risk taking is below the average, I got a 7. That does not surprise me because I don't like taking risks which are not calculated. To judge an situation, an opportunity, to make a decision, I need to have all the data.
In general I agree with all my results and I spoke with some close friends at the school: they find my score quite relevant with my personality and what they know about me. However, I cannot say that the test reflects perfectly the reality. A 60-question test cannot take into account all the aspects of my personality, but it's a good tool a have a first and overall view on somebody.
TALENT MANAGEMENT:
There are the talents that could be useful for me to become a good entrepreneur:
·The first thing I think about is my creativity as an entrepreneur. I’m used to say that I’m not someone who have a lot of idea, and who is not very innovative or creative. I know it can be changed by working on it. That’s the talent I have got to work on… ·I need to trust in me, I need to improve my capacity in being self-confident. It’s obviously one of the main characteristic of en entrepreneur: have an idea and trust in it, believe in its achievement in order to first convince investors and secondly to become successful. ·Improve my knowledge in computer science, especially in the components of a computer: how to recycle it, the consequences of each one on the environment etc. ·Find the right way to promote and market my business. I’m not really a good consumer, and then I don’t reach to figure out what a customer will be attracted by.
There are the talents which may be less supportive to become a successful entrepreneur:
·On the contrary, I think I’m enough realistic. I use to measure all the risk and the alternatives before taking a decision, as I said in my selftest. ·Thanks to my former professional experience, I already have a background in sales abilities. Listen and give some advices to a customer are a thing I’m easily able to do.
RESEARCH:
To create your business, I think there are different steps that you have to follow. First of all, you have to find an idea, but not just an idea that seems cool for you, it must be useful and must interest an important amount of person that could trust and follow in your business. A good entrepreneur has to follow the trend, in order to be at the good place on the right time. Lukas Ritzel advised us to what look for a trend on www.trendwatching.com in order to present our business idea. I explain in detail my choice on my blog page.
The second step is to set up your business by making business plan and forecasts. You can find different websites on the internet such ashttp://www.entrepreneur.com/businessplan/ to do it. On entrepreneur.com you can find how to do business plan, how to get financed, how to find your customers, how to find a new business idea (with another list of trend), etc. But you have plenty websites like this. http://www.bplans.com/and http://entrepreneurs.about.com/od/businessplan/Business_Plans.htm are websites where you can find how to calculate your future potential revenues for instance. You can also look for blogs where entrepreneurs describe their experiences and give some advices to new comers like us.
PICTURE RESEARCH:
I made a research with Bing (the new search engine from Microsoft) on the word ‘entrepreneur’ in order to find a picture which can be relevant concerning the vision I have of an entrepreneur and of running a business.
I chose this picture because it represents for me a team building. In my opinion, nobody can run a business alone because he cannot gather all the competences required: be creative and have a lot of ideas, be realistic and objective on the achievement of the business etc.
This highway represents for me the gathering of different competences around a project or a business idea, and all these competences are then going on the same way: make a business work. There is not only one person who represents the firm and the business. Each road represents somebody in the firm and the gathering represents the way that everyone has to follow. And because it is a quite long highway, the horizon stands for the aim of the business, the perspective of achievement. One of the main things in running a business efficiently is the team building: find the good persons with the right competences which complement each others.
TREND:
After reading through the 10 new trends of 2010 according to trendwatching, I have chosen to link my project to the embedded generosity trend.
I have explained my choice and what the ‘embedded generosity’ is on my blog
NEXT PRACTICE NOT BEST PRACTICE: I have looked for the definition of the ‘best practice’ and I have found that it is a technique or methodology that, through experience and research, has proven to reliably lead to a desired result.
According to me, a best practice is a way, a technique of doing things, of working in the firm in order to improve its efficiency and performances. It can be the marketing strategy, the way of doing the meetings, the implication of the salaries in the decisions, etc.
The first step is to find out new practices and to set them up in the right way. To see if they work or not, you can make research on what your competitors have already done and experienced. That is a benchmark.
After figuring out what could be a best practice, the problem is to implement it. Knowing that every firm is different, it is not obvious that the practice which works well for one firm, has the same results for another firm.
A next practice is, in my opinion, a new way of doing things. We do not know yet if it can be considered as a best practice because it takes some months or years to figure out if a practice is the source of reaching the result.
For my business, a next practice which can evolve in best practice could be the decision making and the way of doing the meeting. I want have a horizontal organization in PC UNITED, the meetings will be very stress less and informal, all my employees or colleagues will have the right to propose something and give its opinion on a lot of topics. Because I have already seen it work in the company a friend used to work in, I think these practices could immediately improve our performance in order to reach our goal.
NAKED PIZZA:
Here is the video we watched during the class and on which I will do my comment. You can watch it before reading my comment because you will then understand easily what I will say. http://www.entrepreneur.com/video/index.html
First of all, Naked Pizza business is based on a good utilization of the technology and the media. During the movie you can see a huge hoarding of Twitter in front of the restaurant. Good advertisement!!
Their business is also based on a well understanding of a trend: people do not want unhealthy fast food anymore. We are more and more concerned by want we eat, the way it is produced, by who, etc.
But the success of Naked Pizza is obviously based on a very original idea: transform one of the most popular fast food meals in a healthy one. They chose to use biological ingredients in order to address the social issue of the project. But in the same time, their pizzas are better for the taste and the health.
Last but not least, they are new comers. This product and the way of doing it did not existed before, they obviously take advantage of this position.
USEFUL COMPETENCIES OF MY TEAM:
In order to be a good entrepreneur and to run my business in an efficient way, my partners and I have to develop some precise competences whether they be technical or behavioral. Here is the list of the main ones...
·Local laws knowledge: to know and understand the labor, corporate, business, tax laws and regulations of the countries I will work with. ·Marketing and communication skills: my business is partly based on a trend, and to benefit from it we have to promote it on the good way and on the right place. ·Ethical view of business: This is one of the bases of my business idea. To know all the laws, the strategy to implement and so on. ·Technical computer science competences in order to deal with all the components that can be reused or not and to do it, how to recycle them, their danger… ·The last one is not really a competence but I thought it was quite important to mention it: I want my team to be motivated by the idea to change the way we consume. Motivation is sometimes more important than any kind of competences, it is like in sport: even though you have the skills, if you are not motivated you cannot succeed.
BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY:
Net Jet: Net Jet is the solution if you want to have all the advantages of owning your own jet without all the inconvenient. Net Jet can bring you wherever you want, whenever you want.
Body shop: Body shop is a place where you can find cosmetics but with a social responsibility orientation avoiding the industrial production and distribution way. They promote the environment protection, are against the tests on animals, etc.
Starbucks: They created a new kind of place where you can spend some times drinking a (quite expensive) coffee with your friend or working on your computer.
eBay: eBay created a new of buying and selling stuff. The eBay client is at the same time the buyer and the seller.
Nintendo Wii: With the Wii, Nintendo completely changed the way of playing video games. They decreased the quality of the graphics but improve the pleasure you have while playing tennis in your living against your friend next to you.
Ikea: Ikea chose to make cheap product for the house. But on the other side they improve the service around the product. Moreover they use to create a special atmosphere in their shop because they show real living rooms, bedrooms, etc in order to promote in a better way their products.
FedEx: FedEx a created a new kind of service: you send a parcel in a very fast and safety way. Moreover you can follow it on the internet to know whenever you want where your parcel is on earth.
CNN: CNN was the first channel to propose news 24/7 and in live.
BUSINESS CANVAS: Partner network: Factories in developing countries, retailers in France.
Cost structure: Implementation of the factories, building of the network, transport.
Core activity: recycling of the old computers, stop polluting and help destitute to get one.
Offer: a cheap and efficient computer specialized in few tasks.
Customer segments: Private individual and firms who are looking a cheap computer and who take into account the worldwide poverty.
Distribution channels: My "PC UNITED" shops will be present in the main French cities starting by Paris where there will be at least 2 shops.
Customers relations: One of my goal is to be very close to my customers, to make them understand my business idea and to convince them to buy my computer.
Revenue streams: Our raw materials are free, it's even a service that we provide to the firms because in most cases they don't know what to do with these old computers.
Comments:
· Section 1:
My score concerning the need for achievement is 10. I did not reach the highest mark because, even thought I'm ambitious and motivated to lead a great carrier, my happiness and my achievement is not only link to work. My objective is a good balance between my personal (family, sport...) and my professional life.
· Section 2:
Concerning the need for autonomy and independence, I had a 5 which is just between the average and the top score. Indeed, I love doing things on my own and after that share what I've done with others.
· Section 3:
I scored the average for the creativity tendency. That really impressed me because I thought I would be under the average... I'm creative and innovative at all, even if I work hard on it. That's maybe why I got the average... I don't really have a lot of ideas and I prefer dealing with concrete and realistic concept. That's maybe my scientific side...
· Section 4:
My score concerning the risk taking is below the average, I got a 7. That does not surprise me because I don't like taking risks which are not calculated. To judge an situation, an opportunity, to make a decision, I need to have all the data.
In general I agree with all my results and I spoke with some close friends at the school: they find my score quite relevant with my personality and what they know about me. However, I cannot say that the test reflects perfectly the reality. A 60-question test cannot take into account all the aspects of my personality, but it's a good tool a have a first and overall view on somebody.
TALENT MANAGEMENT:
There are the talents that could be useful for me to become a good entrepreneur:
· The first thing I think about is my creativity as an entrepreneur. I’m used to say that I’m not someone who have a lot of idea, and who is not very innovative or creative. I know it can be changed by working on it. That’s the talent I have got to work on…
· I need to trust in me, I need to improve my capacity in being self-confident. It’s obviously one of the main characteristic of en entrepreneur: have an idea and trust in it, believe in its achievement in order to first convince investors and secondly to become successful.
· Improve my knowledge in computer science, especially in the components of a computer: how to recycle it, the consequences of each one on the environment etc.
· Find the right way to promote and market my business. I’m not really a good consumer, and then I don’t reach to figure out what a customer will be attracted by.
There are the talents which may be less supportive to become a successful entrepreneur:
· On the contrary, I think I’m enough realistic. I use to measure all the risk and the alternatives before taking a decision, as I said in my selftest.
· Thanks to my former professional experience, I already have a background in sales abilities. Listen and give some advices to a customer are a thing I’m easily able to do.
RESEARCH:
To create your business, I think there are different steps that you have to follow. First of all, you have to find an idea, but not just an idea that seems cool for you, it must be useful and must interest an important amount of person that could trust and follow in your business. A good entrepreneur has to follow the trend, in order to be at the good place on the right time. Lukas Ritzel advised us to what look for a trend on www.trendwatching.com in order to present our business idea. I explain in detail my choice on my blog page.
The second step is to set up your business by making business plan and forecasts. You can find different websites on the internet such ashttp://www.entrepreneur.com/businessplan/ to do it. On entrepreneur.com you can find how to do business plan, how to get financed, how to find your customers, how to find a new business idea (with another list of trend), etc. But you have plenty websites like this. http://www.bplans.com/ and http://entrepreneurs.about.com/od/businessplan/Business_Plans.htm are websites where you can find how to calculate your future potential revenues for instance. You can also look for blogs where entrepreneurs describe their experiences and give some advices to new comers like us.
PICTURE RESEARCH:
I made a research with Bing (the new search engine from Microsoft) on the word ‘entrepreneur’ in order to find a picture which can be relevant concerning the vision I have of an entrepreneur and of running a business.
I chose this picture because it represents for me a team building. In my opinion, nobody can run a business alone because he cannot gather all the competences required: be creative and have a lot of ideas, be realistic and objective on the achievement of the business etc.
This highway represents for me the gathering of different competences around a project or a business idea, and all these competences are then going on the same way: make a business work. There is not only one person who represents the firm and the business. Each road represents somebody in the firm and the gathering represents the way that everyone has to follow. And because it is a quite long highway, the horizon stands for the aim of the business, the perspective of achievement. One of the main things in running a business efficiently is the team building: find the good persons with the right competences which complement each others.
MY BLOG:
Here is the link for my blog page: link
On my blog made on WordPress, I have explained in details all my business idea.
FACEBOOK:
I created a group on Facebook in order to be present on the web 2.0 strategy. Here is the link:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=297774139121&ref=nf
TREND:
After reading through the 10 new trends of 2010 according to trendwatching, I have chosen to link my project to the embedded generosity trend.
I have explained my choice and what the ‘embedded generosity’ is on my blog
NEXT PRACTICE NOT BEST PRACTICE:
I have looked for the definition of the ‘best practice’ and I have found that it is a technique or methodology that, through experience and research, has proven to reliably lead to a desired result.
According to me, a best practice is a way, a technique of doing things, of working in the firm in order to improve its efficiency and performances. It can be the marketing strategy, the way of doing the meetings, the implication of the salaries in the decisions, etc.
The first step is to find out new practices and to set them up in the right way. To see if they work or not, you can make research on what your competitors have already done and experienced. That is a benchmark.
After figuring out what could be a best practice, the problem is to implement it. Knowing that every firm is different, it is not obvious that the practice which works well for one firm, has the same results for another firm.
A next practice is, in my opinion, a new way of doing things. We do not know yet if it can be considered as a best practice because it takes some months or years to figure out if a practice is the source of reaching the result.
For my business, a next practice which can evolve in best practice could be the decision making and the way of doing the meeting. I want have a horizontal organization in PC UNITED, the meetings will be very stress less and informal, all my employees or colleagues will have the right to propose something and give its opinion on a lot of topics. Because I have already seen it work in the company a friend used to work in, I think these practices could immediately improve our performance in order to reach our goal.
NAKED PIZZA:
Here is the video we watched during the class and on which I will do my comment. You can watch it before reading my comment because you will then understand easily what I will say.
http://www.entrepreneur.com/video/index.html
First of all, Naked Pizza business is based on a good utilization of the technology and the media. During the movie you can see a huge hoarding of Twitter in front of the restaurant. Good advertisement!!
Their business is also based on a well understanding of a trend: people do not want unhealthy fast food anymore. We are more and more concerned by want we eat, the way it is produced, by who, etc.
But the success of Naked Pizza is obviously based on a very original idea: transform one of the most popular fast food meals in a healthy one. They chose to use biological ingredients in order to address the social issue of the project. But in the same time, their pizzas are better for the taste and the health.
Last but not least, they are new comers. This product and the way of doing it did not existed before, they obviously take advantage of this position.
USEFUL COMPETENCIES OF MY TEAM:
In order to be a good entrepreneur and to run my business in an efficient way, my partners and I have to develop some precise competences whether they be technical or behavioral. Here is the list of the main ones...
· Local laws knowledge: to know and understand the labor, corporate, business, tax laws and regulations of the countries I will work with.
· Marketing and communication skills: my business is partly based on a trend, and to benefit from it we have to promote it on the good way and on the right place.
· Ethical view of business: This is one of the bases of my business idea. To know all the laws, the strategy to implement and so on.
· Technical computer science competences in order to deal with all the components that can be reused or not and to do it, how to recycle them, their danger…
· The last one is not really a competence but I thought it was quite important to mention it: I want my team to be motivated by the idea to change the way we consume. Motivation is sometimes more important than any kind of competences, it is like in sport: even though you have the skills, if you are not motivated you cannot succeed.
BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY:
Net Jet: Net Jet is the solution if you want to have all the advantages of owning your own jet without all the inconvenient. Net Jet can bring you wherever you want, whenever you want.
Body shop: Body shop is a place where you can find cosmetics but with a social responsibility orientation avoiding the industrial production and distribution way. They promote the environment protection, are against the tests on animals, etc.
Starbucks: They created a new kind of place where you can spend some times drinking a (quite expensive) coffee with your friend or working on your computer.
eBay: eBay created a new of buying and selling stuff. The eBay client is at the same time the buyer and the seller.
Nintendo Wii: With the Wii, Nintendo completely changed the way of playing video games. They decreased the quality of the graphics but improve the pleasure you have while playing tennis in your living against your friend next to you.
Ikea: Ikea chose to make cheap product for the house. But on the other side they improve the service around the product. Moreover they use to create a special atmosphere in their shop because they show real living rooms, bedrooms, etc in order to promote in a better way their products.
FedEx: FedEx a created a new kind of service: you send a parcel in a very fast and safety way. Moreover you can follow it on the internet to know whenever you want where your parcel is on earth.
CNN: CNN was the first channel to propose news 24/7 and in live.
BUSINESS CANVAS:
Partner network: Factories in developing countries, retailers in France.
Cost structure: Implementation of the factories, building of the network, transport.
Core activity: recycling of the old computers, stop polluting and help destitute to get one.
Core resources: computer science experts, motivated workers,
Offer: a cheap and efficient computer specialized in few tasks.
Customer segments: Private individual and firms who are looking a cheap computer and who take into account the worldwide poverty.
Distribution channels: My "PC UNITED" shops will be present in the main French cities starting by Paris where there will be at least 2 shops.
Customers relations: One of my goal is to be very close to my customers, to make them understand my business idea and to convince them to buy my computer.
Revenue streams: Our raw materials are free, it's even a service that we provide to the firms because in most cases they don't know what to do with these old computers.